


Accidents Happen

by sparxwrites



Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Ableism, Anxiety Disorder, Disabled Character, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, assistive technology, mentions of medical torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-22
Updated: 2016-01-22
Packaged: 2018-05-15 12:40:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5785657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparxwrites/pseuds/sparxwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Strife thinks he’s being clever about it, honestly. The gloves look perfectly normal, if a little more futuristic than your average hand-covering – sleek black leather fitted around his fingers and rising up past the wrist, steel supports and servos and motors shaped discreetly around his fingers, burnished a dark, metallic grey to blend in with the material. </p>
<p>Or, at least, he thinks he’s being clever until Parvis – also known as <i>that useless human waste of space that Xephos had the audacity to dump on me, as if I owe him </i>anything<i> after what he did</i> – starts asking about them over breakfast two weeks into their acquaintance.</p>
<p>(In which Strife builds and uses his own assistive technology, and Parvis is far too oblivious and insensitive to think there might be an actual reason that Strife always wears his gloves.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Accidents Happen

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by [this chatfic](http://sparxwrites.tumblr.com/post/131171140305/so-yogshameblog-and-i-started-off-talking-about) about strife and yoglabs, and [this anon](http://sparxwrites.tumblr.com/post/133150250708/strife-loosing-an-arm-and-having-to-make-a) about strife using assistive technology. honestly i just really, really love the idea of strife making his own assistive technology and most people have guessed why he uses it but are polite enough not to bring it up. and then along comes parv, who hasn’t a tactful bone in his body and is a rude, clueless asshole about it.

Strife thinks he’s being clever about it, honestly. The gloves look perfectly normal, if a little more futuristic than your average hand-covering – sleek black leather fitted around his fingers and rising up past the wrist, steel supports and servos and motors shaped discreetly around his fingers, burnished a dark, metallic grey to blend in with the material. The wiring and circuitry is hidden under the gloves themselves, in between the double-layered leather over the backs of his hands, tucked neatly out of sight. It’s functional, fashionable, and discreet, three things he values above almost everything else.

“Why d’you wear those gloves all the time, Strifey?”

Or, at least, he thinks he’s being clever until Parvis – also known as _that useless human waste of space that Xephos had the audacity to dump on me, as if I owe him_ anything _after what he did_ – starts asking about them over breakfast two weeks into their acquaintance.

With his first cup of coffee of the day sat mostly-undrunk in front of him, and a long list of painfully basic projects they need to get done to get the ruins Parvis has settled into at least _partially_ functional as a home, Strife is in no mood to answer that question. “Why do you wear that ridiculous bandana?” he retorts, grumpily, curling hands around the chipped coffee mug in front of him and lifting it to his lips for a long drink. “Have you even _washed_ that thing since you came here?”

“Hey!” Parvis flushes and scowls, glaring across the table at Strife. “You leave my personal hygeine out of this!”

Strife grunts, the corner of his mouth quirking up. “Then you leave my _gloves_ out of this. At least my fashion choices don’t make me look like some cowboy-wannabe,” he adds, uncharitably, before holding up one open-palmed hand when Parvis opens his mouth. “ _No_ , Parvis! This isn’t up for discussion.”

Scowling even further, Parvis slumps down into his seat and sips at his orange juice like a surly teenager. That’s exactly what he is, really, as far as Strife’s concerned, an adult that still insists on behaving like a bratty child. “I was just _asking_ ,” he mumbles, pouting when Strife pointedly ignores him. Despite the admonishments, his eyes are still focused on the delicate, unusual lines of Strife’s gloves, one curled around the coffee mug and the other laid flat on the table.

Distracted as he is by his coffee, Strife doesn’t notice the slow, sly grin that curls across Parvis’ face as he eyes Strife’s hands – nor the wave of orange juice that spreads across the table from Parvis’ _accidentally_ spilt cup, splashing over his glove and seeping through the seams in the leather.

“Whoops!” says Parvis, a grin curling over his lips as the glove on Strife’s right hand sparks and crackles, and then shorts out with a low whine of dying servos and broken wires. “Silly Parv! Guess you’ll just _have_ to take your gloves off now, won’t you, Strifey?”

For a long, long moment, all Strife can do is sit there, frozen, staring at his hand. It feels a little like someone’s wrapped fingers around his throat and _squeezed_ , the panic rising until it’s nearly-strangling. Closing his eyes, he inhales, and then exhales, trying to remember the breathing exercises Kirin taught him over a year ago now. Trying to remember Rythian’s hand in his, soft and warm and equally scarred, as Rythian’s soothing voice washed over him.

“...Get out,” he manages, when he’s sure that what comes out of his mouth isn’t going to be a sob or a whimper. His voice is low and shaking, like his fingers are starting to without the supports and stabilisers to keep them still and steady.

Parvis, oblivious sticks out his lower lip, sticks out his lower lip. “But I-”

“Get _out_!” The words are a roar, this time, enough to alert even _Parvis_ to the fact there’s an issue. Strife can feel his shoulders start to tremble, breath coming in sharp gasps, and he prays to any gods that might be listening that he’s not about to have a panic attack here, in his own kitchen, in front of his no-good, useless, _stupid_ apprentice.

“…Strifey, are you-?” starts Parvis, tentatively – only to flinch when Strife stands up, kicking his chair back with a squeal of wood on stone and slamming his hands down on the table top. “I didn’t mean-”

The words barely even register with Strife, over the ringing in his ears and the tightness in his chest. Parvis is still there, he knows, _still there_ , and the glove’s still useless and sparking against his fingers and he needs to get it off before something shorts out badly enough to burn him. He tries to take a breath deep enough to fill his lungs, to calm him down, and when he can’t manage it through the strangling clench of his ribs something _snaps_.

“You want to know?” asks Strife, and his voice is too loud and wobbling and he’s lost it, lost control, but he can’t seem to pull himself back together. “You want to know why I wear these gloves, Parvis?” He fumbles with the straps of the gloves at his wrist, hissing through his teeth when the hand with the damaged glove refuses to move properly, refuses to close around the pieces of fabric. “Then I’ll show you- I’ll _fucking_ -”

His breath catches in his chest with something like a sob as he tries to make the fingers and thumb on his right hand touch, to pinch at the strap and pull it open, and they refuse to. With a snarl of frustration, he uses his teeth instead, movements short and sharp and jerky until the gloves are loose enough he can pull them off with numb, twitching fingers and shove his shirt sleeves up.

“ _There_ ,” he says, viciously, tossing the scraps of leather and technology onto the table and holding his palms and forearms up for Parvis’ inspection, heedless of the delicate machinery and the care it should be shown. “Are you _happy_ now, Parvis? Is your goddamn _curiosity_ satisfied?!” One of them is already ruined, after all. What does it matter, any more? The secret’s out, he wasn’t clever enough, wasn’t _careful_ enough-

The look of shock that flits across Parvis’ face at the sight of his hands is gratifying for a second, a sharp stab of cruel pleasure through his gut – but the pity that comes after is more than Strife can bear. He looks away, jaw clenched and chest aching with anger and embarrassment and panic, as Parvis’ eyes rove over the scarred, ruined, _useless_ mess that is his hands.

He knows the exact moment that Parvis realises the scars aren’t like his. Aren’t messy and random, but clean, precise, methodical. _Surgical_ , all straight, steady lines with the small puncture wounds of careful stitches running parallel to the worst of them, everything shiny-white and textbook perfect. He hears Parvis’ breath hitch, feels half the fingers on one hand contract involuntarily, and he _knows_.

“… _Will_ …” Parvis says, quietly, and Strife’s never heard him sound so small.

The wild anger drains from him slowly, leaving him feeling exhausted and guilty and somewhere between anxiety and panic. “That’s… that’s why I wear the gloves,” he says, tiredly, trying to curl one hand into a fist and watching as his fingers just arch into claws and _stick_ , instead, his whole hand shaking badly enough that even his forearms move. His wrists ache, and when he tries to straighten his fingers out again, they won’t move. “Hard to, ah, make machinery when- when you can’t hold things.”

Parvis at least has the common sense to not ask _why_ or _how_ – not that those are questions Strife’s willing to answer. Not yet, at least. Instead, he looks down at the floor, chewing on his lip and rubbing at the back of his neck. “How badly did I break the glove?” he says, still in that small, ashamed voice.

Sighing, Strife lifts one hand to scrub at his face, trying not to flinch at the rough, raised lines of scar tissue that scrape across the soft skin there. “I don’t know. I’ll have to have a look. The liquid’s probably fried half the circuits, maybe melted some of the wires, bled the battery dry…” He sees Parvis flinch, and grits his teeth as the urge to reassure Parvis wars with the urge to snap that _he_ has _no right_ to be upset about this. “It’ll probably be easier to rebuild it from scratch, honestly.”

“…I could help,” suggests Parvis, daring to glance at Strife’s face, something hopeful in his tone. His eyes catch on those scars again, awful and pale and shiny and so _terrifyingly_ neat, and it’s an effort of will to pull his gaze away. “Be your- your hands. Until you can get ‘em both working again.”

Strife snorts, resting his curled-fingered hand on the table and carefully straightening out his fingers with gentle pressure from the forearm of his other arm. “Parvis,” he says, and there’s something tight and dark and amused in his voice. “What the _hell_ makes you think I want your help, given you’re the one that _broke_ them?”

“I didn’t know you actually needed them!” whines Parvis, worrying at his lip with his teeth and frowning. “I didn’t know they were actually- y’know. I thought it was just like your stupid tie or the disassembler or something. Fashion technology.”

“And if I _didn’t_ look like something out of a surgical anatomy textbook, it _would_ have been okay?” asks Strife, sharply.

The pout slides off Parvis’ face, and his expression becomes something that can only be described as _stricken_. “I didn’t say-!” he manages, eyes wide and faintly panicked, before Strife waves him silent with a clumsy gesture.

“No, you didn’t,” he agrees. “But I know what I look like, Parvis. I’m not stupid.” He knows what he looks like far better than Parvis does – Parvis, after all, is likely still under the impression that the scars stop at his hands and wrists, don’t run clean and true across the rest of his body. Parvis hasn’t seen the ropey, Y-shaped scar that splits him from shoulder to shoulder to groin, where they opened him up, where they peeled everything back to look inside him, where they-

Swallowing hard, he looks at the gloves lying in a pile on the table, one still soaked and sticky with orange juice. “The point… the point is, even if I _didn’t_ need them, it still wouldn’t be okay. They’re an expensive piece of technology, and they’re _my_ piece of technology, not yours. Break your own stuff on your own time, not when you’re with me and you’re learning.” He pauses, thoughtful. “And if you _ever_ pull a _stupid_ stunt like that with the disassembler, I’ll make you wish you’d never been born.

Parvis blanches. “Wouldn’t dare, Strifey,” he promises, as close to earnest as he can get. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

“Hmm. Well.” Strife’s not particularly satisfied by the promise – or the lack of apology – but he’s not sure he has it in him to push the point any further. “That’s exactly what you’ll be doing if you break the disassembler, I promise you,” he threatens grimly, and resists letting the corner of his lip twitch upwards in amusement at the way Parvis’ eyes widen in alarm.

They’ll have to talk about this properly, he knows, now it’s been brought up. Parvis will have questions, and want answers Strife’s not sure he has it in him to give. But, for right now, there’s breakfast to finish, and work to be getting on with, and Parvis seems to have been scared into leaving well enough alone, which is… something, at least. “Now, help me get the glove you _didn’t_ manage to ruin back on. I want to finish my coffee without using a goddamn straw, thank you very much.”

 


End file.
